The Hummel Quest Tales: Arty
by autophagy
Summary: A lot happened before Arty joined the tanking league, and this story will shed light on some of those events. (These stories are a series of bits and pieces of background stories for the characters of my main story (The Hummel Quest), so they won't make a lot of sense on their own.)
1. Arrival

The factory was a scary place. The Leichttraktor had just woken up, and the very first emotion that she had felt was confusion. All around her there was noise, a big machine working as if it had a life of its own. She felt cold shivers run through her chassis and tried to find her way out. No one else seemed to be here, but when she finally found an exit, she was taken aback by the outside world that presented itself to her. Burnt down and crumbled buildings framed the scenery on one side, wide open planes the other one. The sky was of a grey-ish blue color, and there were no clouds. It looked…bleak. She didn't know what else to do, and she felt lonely and lost, but also didn't dare to venture any further into this strange and alien world. Therefore, she stayed where she was, half hiding behind the factory's open doors. Was no one here? Did she even want to be found? She had no other choice than to wait and see what would happen.

A churning feeling of emptiness in her fuel tanks had eventually driven her to go out and explore this place. A bunch of birds fleeing from her startled her so much that she fired her cannon at them, then marveled at her own deed. She hadn't been aware that she could do that. Looking at a broken window that she had just destroyed by accident, she felt a bit more confident now. If she found something scary, she would do this again.

She started following a path of sorts, the only kind of reference point she could see in this dry wasteland. Her treads kicked up dust as she advanced until she could see smoke in the distance.

Her curiosity won against her anxiousness and as she got closer, she started recognizing shapes that seemed to have gathered around a campfire of sorts. So there were others like her? All of them were Leichttraktors as well. She felt a bit of excitement as she saw them turn around until all of them were looking at her. Maybe they could help her and explain to her what she was doing here? They watched her approach, and as she reached the group, one of them drove over to her. Something told her that he was their leader. Before she could say anything, the other tank started speaking.

"What's your name?" he asked her and the little Leichttraktor looked to the ground.  
"I don't know" she replied. He nodded briefly and gestured at the other Leichttraktors that were standing behind him and looking at her curiously. "You're the fifteenth tank, so we will call you Fifteen for now. I'm One, the commander, and I'll introduce you to the others later." He turned back to her.  
"What class do you want to be?" he continued with another question. Again she didn't know the answer, but felt pressured to say something.  
"I…want to be a light" she said quietly. It was the only class she actually knew.  
"Alright, you will stay with us" the commander eventually said after thinking about it for a moment. "From now on I'm your commander. You will learn how to fight and how to kill. You must be loyal and never run away or hurt a team mate. Do you understand?"  
Despite having never heard these terms before, she intuitively knew what they meant and quickly nodded. "Understood, commander."


	2. Untitled

None of them talked a lot. As promised, the commander had shown her who was who, but it had taken Fifteen a while until she had realized that an easy way to tell them apart was looking at the serial numbers at their sides. Which added a whole new layer of complication to it. She didn't know why they wouldn't just go by their serial numbers as names, but didn't voice that question and instead just accepted it, instead trying to associate the numbers to each other. From what she had understood the names were only temporary anyway. The introductions themselves had been very short – with only such a short time of being awake, no one really knew how to describe themselves yet. Now, a hollow silence had come down over the makeshift camp again as everyone dwelled on their own thoughts. It seemed like they were waiting for something, but no one appeared really enthusiastic about it, if they even knew what it was. The uneasy suspense the Leichttraktor felt soon became uneasy boredom, and she had started staring at the flat horizon in search of anything that would break this monotony.

She had noticed some movement there before, but only as she took a closer look she realized that those far away moving shapes wasn't just dust that the wind swirled up. She could have sworn that she saw the gleam of metal against the setting sun. Feeling alarmed, she shifted over to One and nudged him.  
"What's that over there?" she asked and pointed at one of the shapes. The other Leichttraktor followed her gaze but remained perfectly calm.  
"It's the Matchmakers" he said.  
"The Matchmakers?" Fifteen frowned.  
One made a non-committal noise. "It's what they call themselves. I don't know why. Maybe it will make sense one day."

Fifteen fell silent for a moment and watched the clouds of dust in the distance thoughtfully. "Why won't they talk to us?" she asked.  
One pushed another log into the fire. "They are only guarding the factory and making sure that we get fuel until we can leave with a full team. Sometimes they make teams leave even if they aren't complete yet, if it takes too long" he explained.  
The light tilted her cannon. "How do you know all these things?" she asked eventually. The question had been on her mind for a while now. One shrugged.  
"I was the first, so they came to me and told me these things. They also told me that I should not call myself a leader, but as the others started leaving mother they just started calling me that, so I rolled with it. I guess you are what fate makes you." He shrugged again.  
Fifteen didn't know if she agreed with his last sentence, but she would have had to think about it more to hold any kind of in-depth discussion about it.

One of the dust clouds suddenly started approaching them. A massive tank appeared in it as it got closer to them. Fifteen watched it in awe, but she did not feel fear this time. It halted in front of them and spoke to them with a female voice.

"The time has come" the stranger said, "You will have to leave tomorrow morning. Try to find a tank recovery vehicle, they are rare but they can repair you and help you with tiering up."  
One nodded. "How will we recognize them?"  
"You will know them when you see them."  
Again, the Leichttraktor nodded. "Thank you for your hospitality" he said with his cannon lowered slightly.  
The stranger turned to leave. "It was my duty. Good luck on your journey" she said and drove off again.


End file.
